


Mess

by elisetales



Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: Death of a Parent, Grief/Mourning, M/M, POV Second Person, bad at feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-16 02:28:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisetales/pseuds/elisetales
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abel's mother dies, and Cain isn't sure how he's supposed to react.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mess

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarthVaderC11](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthVaderC11/gifts).



> Vv, I'm so sorry! I know you're probably more of a fluffy girl rather than an angsty girl, but angst is all I had and so I offer this gift to you and hope you won't be too displeased by it's measliness. ILU! You deserve all the things and are so sweet and cute! ~~Also I'm really super sorry it's in second person, I've been reading way too much Homestuck fic!~~

You've never seen him this upset.

You've known Abel exactly four months now and you've only ever seen him cry twice – both times it was you who drove him to it. This time, though, you’re sure it’s got nothing to do with you and so your first instinct is to ask who the hell's fucked with him so you can fuck _them_ up, fix it for him, make him stop crying like that because you hate it when he cries. 

You tell yourself it's because you can't stand whiny little bitches. Really it's because you can't stand the way he looks at you when he does, all wet-eyed and helpless, bottom lip quivering like he expects you to up and do something about it.

And you would if he’d fucking answer you, so when he doesn’t you ask him again, sit down next to him on the bed and keep your hands to yourself, even if you think he probably wants you to touch him right now, put your arms around him, comfort him, do _something_. He’ll probably bitch you out later for doing nothing but you _can’t_ and so you sit there like an idiot instead, listening to him cry while you feel fucking useless about it.

After a while he brings his knees up to his chest and hides his face from you, lets out a broken sob and shifts away, faces the wall, leaves you sitting there wondering what the hell it is you’re supposed to do now when he won’t even talk to you, tell you what’s wrong or who’s hurt him.

You wait some more, wait until you’re good and fucking irritated, until he unfurls from his curled position and flops down on his side like a wounded animal, before you decide to get tough with him, force him to look at you, tell you what’s going on, sick of the silence now and sick of listening to him cry.

“Abel.” He flinches when you say his name. “What the fuck’s up? Answer me.”

He does. “My mother died. I found out this morning,” he tells you, flat and lifeless, and you've never heard him sound this way before, this hurt and broken. You go a little cold.

You don't know what to say to him after that and so you don’t say anything at all. You don’t think there’s much you _can_ say that’s going to make this any better for him. Long minutes pass and when he doesn't say another word you turn around and head for the door, decide to leave him alone with his grief, purposefully ignoring the hoarse, broken little "Cain, come _back_ ," that follows you out into the corridor. 

You don't see him again until the next morning. He’s still lying there on the bed in his night clothes, cheeks tracked with tears, eyes and nose red from what’s probably been hours of crying. He’s surrounded by used up tissues. He looks like shit and you doubt he’s slept.

You won’t speak until he does first, too awkward trying to fuck around with him like normal, make small talk even, when he’s feeling like this. You take off your jacket and boots, and when he asks you where you've been you lie to him, make something up, don't tell him you were with Deimos half the night because you know he's got some jealous girlfriend complex going on there and Deimos is always going to be a source of conflict between you.

On any other day it wouldn't stop you from telling him everything, though; embellishing the details, even. Making it sound worse than it is. You'd do it just to be spiteful, just to watch him try not to lose his shit at you, do the whole jealous girlfriend routine and demand to know if you're fucking him, if he's the only one you're fucking, if this thing between you even means anything to you. 

But you won't, not today, not when he looks like he's too shattered to even put up a fight with you, like he hasn't slept all night and might have even been waiting up for you to come back to him.

You remind yourself how fucking stupid that is, how pointless it is for you to feel guilty over it before you actually _apologize_ to him, make a mistake and say something nice. You're only going to end up fucking him over anyway and you know there's no point playing sweet with him now, not when he’s only going to hate you for it in a few months time.

Still, there's a part of you that wishes it didn't have to be this way, that you could be all the things to him that he wants you to be, all the things he thinks you are. 

And it doesn't keep you from being drawn to him, from lying down next to him and putting your arms around him, bringing his body into yours and kissing the back of his neck. 

You lie there for a while and enjoy the heat of his body, the way he feels against you, closing your eyes and listening to him breathe. He’s stiff in your arms, doesn’t want to cuddle with you now that you’ve left him alone all night, but you know him, know it won’t take long for him to warm up to you, forgive you, let you kiss him and touch him, want for you to tell him that all of this bullshit actually means something to you. That you’ve never felt this way before. That he’s the only one you’re fucking, the only one for you.

But you never tell him what he wants to hear. You’re not about to start now.

“So I take it you got us the day off, then?” you say into his ear. You’ve decided against bringing up what he told you last night, figure if you just ignore it then he might too. You squeeze him and he nods slowly, bringing a damp tissue up to his face and dabbing at his eyes and nose. He sniffles and you graze his ear with your teeth.

“Should try to get some training in this morning at least,” you sigh, stretching and patting his ass before you roll away from him and onto your back, staring up at the low ceiling for a few seconds. Sometimes you feel as if it’s closing in on you.

Abel somehow manages to make, "I need you, Cain. Please just stay," sound like an accusation. 

You let out a low hiss of breath, "tch" when he rolls over and raises his hips up off the bed, pressing his cheek to the pillow and presenting his ass to you. He stares at you as he pulls his pants down around his thighs, baring himself, and you let out a little growl, pissed because he knows you well enough by now to know just how to manipulate you and get you to stick around. Pissed because it's working, because you know you'll fuck him anyway, even if you're aware it wasn't what he had in mind when he told you he needed you.

But this is all that you can give to him, and you know he knows that too.

He shakes like the first time when you push into his tight heat, clutching the sheets with both hands and whimpering when you start to move in and out of him. You lean over him, wanting to feel his back against your chest, and kiss his shoulders, the back of his neck, coddling him like it's the first time all over again only this time you're not fucking it all up, hurting him just because you can, because dumb virgins amuse the fuck out of you. It isn't funny anymore; you can’t remember when he stopped being funny to you, stopped amusing you and started confusing the hell out of you instead.  

He shifts around beneath you, mumbles to himself, curls delicate white fingers around your hand and digs his nails in. You stop, not sure how he wants to do this, if he’s trying to tell you something he won’t say; if he wants you to give it to him slow just like this or really fuck the shit out of him, so hard he can forget all about his mother being dead, about everything waiting for him when he finally goes home, back to Earth where he belongs. You wish he'd tell you because you're sick of feeling helpless, of not knowing what to do to fix this, how to make him be the Abel you know again. 

You decide to keep it slow, stay gentle with him, don’t want to give him another reason to cry, and it's not until you're coming, pulling his head back and trying to make him kiss you, that you realise he's crying anyway.

You pull him to your chest when it’s over, don't talk or make fun of him like you sometimes do, just let him lie there and cry all over you, stroke his hair while he shakes and sobs and makes those broken little noises you can't stand to hear. 

You wait until he's quieted down, turned over onto his side and breathing softly, evenly, before you lean into him, snake a hand around his waist and kiss behind his ear, force out, "I'm sorry, baby," because you're sure now it's what he needs from you, what he's been waiting to hear you say. You cringe as the words come out of your mouth, though; ask yourself exactly when it was you turned into such a sappy dumb fuck.

You wonder if you've said the wrong thing when he starts to cry again, only it’s not like before: softer this time, and without the broken sobs. He turns around in the circle of your arms and gives you a gross, sloppy kiss, wraps his arms around your neck and presses his face to your chest, right over your heartbeat, when he pulls away. He kisses your skin, his tears cool as they dry on your chest, and for a minute you have the sick feeling he's about to tell you he fucking loves you or some shit.

He doesn't. You're glad he doesn't.

Instead he just sniffles and says thickly, “I know you are, Cain. I know,” like he's actually _proud_ of you for something. He pulls you closer, pushes his fingers through yours where they rest on his hip, and clutches on for dear life, like he believes you’re actually sorry about his stupid mother, like he thinks he’ll be able to _make_ you stay if he only holds on hard enough.  

 


End file.
